The Insane Reason Superman Really Came Back To Supergirl

Warning: major spoilers ahead for the penultimate episode of Supergirl Season 2, "Resist."

There's only one episode left in Season 2 of Supergirl, and it's bound to be a doozy. We already knew that the end of the season would see Kara's cousin Clark make a grand return to National City, but we haven't had any details about how or why he'd be back. Well, the very last scene of "Resist" gave us the answer, and it's probably not how most of us expected Superman to re-enter the superhero scene. The Man of Steel turned up again when he emerged from the shadows on the Daxamite ship to smack the figurative stuffing out of his cousin. Superman is a super bad guy!

Of course, it's pretty obvious already that Superman isn't going full villain out of any choice of his own. This seems to be a clear case of mind control courtesy of Queen Rhea and her mission to get rid of Supergirl and transform Earth into New Daxam. We've seen instances of mind control on Supergirl in the past; in fact, Superman was unable to lend a hand in the Season 1 finale because he fell under the brainwashing spell that had just about everybody else out of commission. Now, it seems that Queen Rhea has found another way to control the Man of Steel and use him to battle his cousin. What better way to occupy one aggressive Kryptonian than with another aggressive Kryptonian?

Given that we'd only heard that Tyler Hoechlin was returning to Supergirl for the Season 2 finale, his appearance as a bad guy in the very end of the penultimate episode came as a major shock from where I was sitting. I didn't expect to see him in action until the trailer for the finale at the very earliest. Instead, Mr. "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" lunged out of the bowels of the Daxamite ship and attacked his affection cousin Kara. I hope they make up by the end of next week's finale, or family meetings in the Fortress of Solitude might be frosty for a whole new reason. I'm sore from just watching how hard Superman whacked Supergirl.

The promo for next week's finale indicates that Superman won't be snapping out of his stupor very quickly. He and Kara will evidently come to blows before the episode is through. Take a look!

That said, I'm betting that he'll be back on the side of the good guys in time to lend a helping hand against the Daxamites. Supergirl executive producer Andrew Kreisberg revealed not so long ago that Superman would be a stabilizing influence on Kara, and that having him around would help her make some hard decisions. Whatever happens, we can bet that Superman won't be a weapon for Queen Rhea for too long. That's not to say that he won't escape from Rhea only to immediately run into General Zod, but we'll have to wait and see. Kara and Co. were looking for him to help them out in the beginning of "Resist," so hopefully he'll be able to pitch in once he has his head on straight.